Paperback
English language
Published Sept. 8, 2008 by New York Review Books.
Over the last twenty-five years Vladimir Sorokin has established himself as a provocative and unignorable presence in contemporary Russian literature, and The Queue, his first novel, is now recognized as a modern classic. Sorokin's brilliance―his formal daring, his keen eye and ear for the absurdities of life and language, his unequaled playfulness―is manifest in this sly comedy set during the late Soviet "years of stagnation." Thousands of citizens are in line for . . . nobody knows quite what, but the rumors are flying. Leather or suede? Jackets, jeans? Turkish, Swedish, maybe even American? It doesn't matter―if something's for sale, it's time to queue up. The endless line of expectant, irritable, inquisitive, bored but never less than determined people has a life and a will of its own, and Sorokin, in a tour de force, conveys that life entirely through the ebb and flow of conversation. We get to know …
Over the last twenty-five years Vladimir Sorokin has established himself as a provocative and unignorable presence in contemporary Russian literature, and The Queue, his first novel, is now recognized as a modern classic. Sorokin's brilliance―his formal daring, his keen eye and ear for the absurdities of life and language, his unequaled playfulness―is manifest in this sly comedy set during the late Soviet "years of stagnation." Thousands of citizens are in line for . . . nobody knows quite what, but the rumors are flying. Leather or suede? Jackets, jeans? Turkish, Swedish, maybe even American? It doesn't matter―if something's for sale, it's time to queue up. The endless line of expectant, irritable, inquisitive, bored but never less than determined people has a life and a will of its own, and Sorokin, in a tour de force, conveys that life entirely through the ebb and flow of conversation. We get to know his characters as they joke and curse, flirt, fight over position in line, make love or break up, slurp down ice cream and vodka, run errands, fill out crossword puzzles, fall asleep and stand to attention again when morning comes around and the queue―which may be as long as life and as wide as the world―exercises its hypnotic hold.
A fun but unusual read. Written so you feel you experience the queue. And with lots of asides about politics but in clever and funny ways. A surprisingly raunchy sex scene too.
And the queue? Here's hoping they still have some left when we get to the front.....
